Training Log Archive: blairtrewin

Took a tip on this one from Asha (for whom it's a reasonably regular haunt) - I was looking for something which was flat (because of the Achilles), interesting and preferably shady, and the O'Shannassy aqueduct track ticked all these boxes - it runs along the north side of the upper Yarra valley, along the lower slopes of Mount Donna Buang, perhaps 100-150 metres above the valley floor. (The idea of going out east of Melbourne had also been planted in my mind when I thought I might have had to go to the Marysville half last weekend for a Two Bays qualifier, but the organisers decided that my record of several finishes in 2016 and earlier years was good enough).

Started with plans of something between 60 and 90 depending on how it felt (having walked up the hill from the Don Rd car park to the aqueduct initially - starting on a 20+% climb would have been asking for trouble). There were just enough twinges from time to time to make me happy to settle for the lower end of this range, which took me as far as the end of Dee Rd. A steady run on the whole in a nice area, and I appreciated the forest cover on another warm and humid day (plenty more of those to come).

Some of the rest of the day was spent doing the Warburton-Reefton Spur-Marysville loop - winding hilly roads (very popular with those on two wheels, with or without engines), and nice forests where they haven't been burnt out. It's the first time I've been to Marysville since the fires; it's not obvious in the centre of town that virtually nothing here is more than eight years old (90+% of the town's buildings were destroyed on Black Saturday), although the damage is still starkly visible in the surrounding hills. Lots of people around, so at least the local economy was doing OK today.

I've developed a reasonably sore throat in the second half of the day, so probably won't be at my best through the early part of next week.

C • That is some hill 1

Sprint Series in Royal Park. Thought this would be a running race and to some extent it was, although the complexity of the vegetation added some interest to the early part of the course (as well as reintroducing us to the joys of grass seeds). Seemed to handle this better than some but still no pace once it opened out. Was wondering what was happening when Peter Dalwood caught back up to me, but it turned out the reason he'd caught up was that he hadn't been to as many controls. Not quite as far back as the last couple.

It was reasonably hot and humid for the run and at that stage there was no sign of the promised thunderstorms, but they developed and unloaded shortly after 4 - just in time for my shift on the polls at Fairfield. This could be said to be a bit of a metaphor for the sort of day that Labor ended up having (something I didn't see coming) - even retreated to a nearby underpass for a bit after a couple of very close lightning strikes. (19mm was the final score).

Got quite a few items in scrutineers' bingo, but was missing two (the phallic symbol on a ballot paper, and the write-in vote for someone with no connection whatsoever to the election). As usual, there were a few screeds written upon ballot papers, one of which even consisted of grammatically correct sentences containing correctly spelt words, none of which were 'f**k' or derivatives thereof. Highlight of the informals was someone who drew a pawprint in the box for the Animal Justice Party.

C • election result 15

C • Informal pawprint 3

A fairly conventional session of this type. Once again, sunglare was a bit of a problem on the return legs at this time of day. (It's also a problem in the office, thanks to reflection from a new building, between about 5.45 and 6.15 - perhaps someone is trying to tell me that I shouldn't still be around at 6.15?).

The ankle stiffened up again today much as it did last Thursday, from which I conclude (on the basis of two data points) that there's a fair chance this session has something to do with it. Not quite sure why.

One of those runs when the time that I woke up was somewhat after the time when the run started, making for a fairly miserable first half which only picked up gradually thereafter. On the positive side, the Achilles was the least troublesome it's been in the last week (although I did deliberately choose a relatively flat route).

Went out at Blind Creek not really sure whether my body was going to hold up. It was quickly apparent that finishing was the only real objective tonight - a sharp twinge in the Achilles on a steep slope in the first few hundred metres made me consider pulling out, but that was a bad as it got. Didn't go too badly as a salvage operation; it helped that I seemed to get the route right.

There were thunderstorms about beforehand (although no significant rain during the run itself). This is an area where we should know exactly how much rain affected the event - it's the only Melbourne park-street map which has an official observation site (Scoresby) on it.

After results were announced this morning, needless to say I was immediately looking for geographic patterns in them. As has been remarked on a fair bit, the areas that voted 'no' were largely areas with large Asian and/or Islamic populations. (That was certainly true in Melbourne - the two seats which voted no were Bruce (out Clayton/Noble Park way with a big Indian/Sri Lankan population) and Calwell (based on Broadmeadows and with a large Islamic population). More subtly, areas with a large percentage of their population under 15 tended to have high 'no' votes; perhaps the nonsense the No campaign were pumping out about Safe Schools had some bite with parents of young children?

The length of time that it took me to work out that I wasn't yet up to an intervals session was too short even to encompass a Jacqui Lambie resignation, and with an awkwardly timed interview beforehand I didn't have time to switch to a plan B.

(Was nice to be able to merge the local and the global, though - it was an interview with ABC Gippsland about the global climate statement, but I was able to mention that Sale was one of only a handful of places in the world (along with Bariloche, Argentina and a few spots in Qatar and the UAE) which had their coldest temperature on record during 2017).

Monday morning swim, in a more heavily populated Fitzroy pool than is the norm for this time of day (although not as heavily populated as it would have been later in the day with the temperature into the 30s). Steady most of the way but drifted out of it a bit towards the end.

Mission accomplished, as it often hasn't been for attempted lunchtime runs of late - the only real benchmark here was to get through without anything hurting too much. This was achieved (although the Achilles did twinge a bit on one ramp). Also got through the first hot-weather run of the season, with it sitting on 30 degrees on heading out (I was out of town for the other 30-degree days we've had to date); a bit of a seabreeze in the places where it wasn't blocked by buildings, which wasn't very often. (40 minutes isn't really enough to get to anywhere nice to run for more than a few minutes, so Fishermans Bend is my usual destination for a 40-minute loop: unexciting and industrial, but not much in the way of road crossings).

Somewhat to my surprise, there were no fresh political resignations when I got back.

C • No more resignations? 6